


To Say Nothing of the Tiger

by Muccamukk



Category: Hornblower (TV)
Genre: Hijinks & Shenanigans, Jealousy, M/M, Pining, Possibly Unrequited Love, Post-Canon, Tigers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-12 19:28:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29265774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Muccamukk/pseuds/Muccamukk
Summary: Admiral Pellew wants a favour. Horatio wants to do anything to help. William just wants to spend time with Horatio.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s), William Bush/Horatio Hornblower
Comments: 8
Kudos: 10
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 6





	To Say Nothing of the Tiger

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sanguinity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanguinity/gifts).



> Set in a slightly altered post-show timeline where it takes a bit for Hornblower to get his new ship, basically post-Duty Hotspur Husbands. I do reckless damage Pellew's timeline, as well, but that's probably Forester's fault.
> 
> Fic is inspired by this [LJ post about Pellew's pets](https://following-sea.livejournal.com/475142.html).
> 
> Thank you to Nenya Kanadka for beta reading for me <3

William was unused to being summoned to the flagship when Horatio was a plausible option, but that was what the flags read, and so the flagship was where William went. Horatio arriving from shore in a jolly boat eased some of William's worry, but not enough that he didn't bend in to ask in a low tone, "Any idea what this is about, sir?"

"New orders perhaps?" Horatio said, but he sounded doubtful. He'd been promised a promotion to post captain and a ship befitting that rank, but the Admiralty worked at its usual pace, leaving Horatio in his wife's tender care, and William manning the Hotspur with a skeleton crew, trying to be grateful that at least he wasn't back on half pay. The only orders they were meant to get was Horatio's commission, and with any luck William's subsequent transfer to follow him.

"As you say, sir," William said. He ducked automatically as he went through the hatch, but of course had no need of it in a ship of the line like the Tonnant.

Admiral Pellew was waiting as the marines showed them in, hands behind his back, staring out at the choppy grey waters of Portsmouth Harbour. He turned as Horatio cleared his throat, and smiled with the genuine pleasure William had only seen the admiral express for his protege. He asked after Horatio's wife, her cooking, the weather, the Hotspur, even though Horatio hadn't been aboard her in a good week, before finally rocking on the balls of his feet and clearing his throat.

"Do you have new orders for the Hotspur, sir?" Horatio asked eventually.

"Not orders, precisely, no," Pellew evaded, and Bush raised an eyebrow. This was the kind of introduction he'd gotten to Horatio not _quite_ cheating at cards, a circumlocution that indicated he was skating on the thinnest ice of propriety. "I would call it a favour, if you please."

"Of course, Admiral," Horatio promised, and William nodded, though he expected if the Admiral asked Horatio to fall on his own sword, it would be done before the word was out of his mouth, with a murmur of thanks for allowing Horatio to be of use.

From Pellew's faint grimace, he likely knew the same and regretted it, but not enough to keep him from asking for this new favour. "Damned awkward business, but that's life in the King's service, eh?"

Horatio's gaze drifted sideways towards William, but their eyes didn't quite meet. "Sir?"

Pellew cleared his throat again, and said, "I'm expecting Lady Susan aboard in two bells, a farewell tour she said, even though it may yet be weeks before I transfer to the Culloden, let alone set sail for India, but the lady has insisted, and as I'm sure Captain Hornblower has learned, it doesn't do to gainsay one's wife."

"Of course, sir," Horatio said, and Bush wondered if he'd met the Admiral's wife before.

"Good man," Pellew said distractedly, then cleared his throat with the suddenness of a pistol shot. "It will only be for a day or two, four at the most. Lady Susan never could abide being aboard ship for longer than that. I regret calling you away from your own hearth and home to convenience mine, but I'd think Isabella needs to be to be escorted at all times, and I don't trust any other man to do it, Hornblower, in truth I do not."

"Isabella, sir?" Horatio asked faintly, and only a lifetime in the King's service allowed William to suppress a groan. He would not have expected Admiral Pellew to be the sort of man who had trouble keeping his mistress away from his wife, but it seemed that men of all ranks could be disappointingly unorganised.

"Astonishing creature, never seen anything like her," Pellew said with an enthusiasm that made Horatio's face twitch into a frown despite himself. "Just came in with the East India convoy—you'll have seen them cluttering up the harbour—and I'd thought to have her stowed somewhere by now, but the trials of the Navy kept me busy, eh. Now, I'm sure you and Mr. Bush will want to look to transferring Isabella and her effects to the Hotspur. She's as mild as a lamb once she's aboard, but there's only so much tiger one can accommodate in a cutter."

"T... tiger, sir?" William said before he could help himself, the situation becoming horrifyingly clear.

Horatio sighed in relief.

* * *

"Does the Admiral often keep... uh... such unusual pets, sir?" William called across the length of theHotspur's cutter.

He was perched in the bow, wrapped in a boat cloak against the blowing rain, while Horatio and Isabella had displaced the coxswain in the stern. Horatio was likewise bundled up, while Isabella just looked wet. The mutinous gleam that had taken hold in the eyes of the oarsmen as they'd seen what was coming down in the bosun's chair had faded a little as all three-dozen-odd stones of cat proceeded to huddle against the side of their captain in bewilderment. The cutter had sunk precariously low in the water, but stayed afloat.

"Sir Edward had a monkey when he was captain of the Indy," Horatio called back, shouting to keep the wind from snatching his words. Isabella stirred and the cutter pitched to larboard.

William didn't think an African monkey such as many frigate captains in the Med kept was very much at all like a fully grown white tiger with yellow-gold stripes.

"She seems perfectly friendly," Horatio added off William's raised eyebrow, moderating his voice a little.

"Mild as a lamb, sir," William replied.

* * *

Styles, of course, insisted that it would be bad luck. He stuck to the point, no matter how Matthews tried to convince him that it wasn't much different than a mousing cat that many ships kept, and that anyway it had been aboard the Indiaman with no apparent problems, and the flagship the same. William left them mid-debate, with strict orders to stow the tiger, no matter what kind of luck it was.

"I suppose I'll send for my trunk," Horatio said gloomily, once they'd settled in the great cabin.

"I'd have thought you'd be glad to be back at sea," William said, too quickly.

Horatio got up again even though he'd only sat down a moment before, and went to look out at the distant pier. His pose matched Pellew's so exactly that William wondered if he was copying it on purpose. "At sea, yes, Mister Bush," he said, "not at anchor in port playing nanny to a—" He bit the word off and took a deep breath, shoulders heaving against his freshly brushed coat.

"I'm sure I can manage, sir," William said. He'd spent the last week managing an increasingly bored skeleton crew waiting for orders, and didn't see how one pet cat, regardless of its size would change that. "If you wanted to go home."

A few months ago, William would have sworn that Horatio didn't have any home that wasn't aboard ship, but that wasn't reflected in the steady gaze shoreward. Horatio took a long breath, and for a moment William expected him to agree, but then he shook his head slightly and turned back to the table. "No," he said with a wry smile, "the Admiral hasn't given me permission to sleep ashore." He wouldn't trust a task Pellew had given him to any other man anyway. "At sea or in port, I have my orders, William."

"Of course, sir," William said, then smiled, and added, "I can't say I'll mind the company."

Horatio hesitated for a moment, as if considering what was proper, then smiled back and asked, "Midshipman Orrock not a stimulating conversation partner?"

"Not after the first day, sir," Bush said, though as he said it, he felt vaguely that it was something he ought to be instructing the young gentlemen on, though how high could an Irish boy of no particular family rise even in a time of war? "But his navigation is progressing."

"Good man," Horatio said, and William felt his heart glow.

Just then, the hatch opened with no knock. William was half way to his feet, a rebuke on his lips, when a broad white and yellow head pushed into the cabin, and a sleek powerful body followed.

"Isabella can open hatches," Horatio said with a forced gaiety that verged on panic. "Excellent."

"Matthews!" William bellowed, rattling the compass and protractors on the table in front of him.

"Coming, sir!" Matthews said, already sounding harried after a quarter bell in his new position as tiger minder. He paid his respects as he skated into the cabin, but Isabella ignored him in favour of shouldering her way under the table in order to rest her head in Horatio's lap.

William sighed.

"Maybe you could rig up some kind of collar," Horatio said in a fit of optimism, absently scratching behind Isabella's ear.

"It's been tried, sir," Matthews told him, in a tone that made William want to ask how many casualties there'd been.

"Has it?" William asked, and finished getting up. "I'd better go see to this, sir," he said, but it only occurred to him as he was half way through the hatch that he had no way to get the cat out of the captain's lap.

* * *

In the end, a couple of the ratings fished half a dozen small tunny off the rail, and that was enough to convince Isabella that she might like being on the gun deck after all. When William went down for dinner, the tiger was lounging between two of the long nines, meticulously cleaning her whiskers, looking for all the world like an animal the twentieth of her size.

"What she needs, sir," Matthews opined, "is some sort of box."

"A box?" William asked, trying to picture it.

"Well, cats like boxes, don't they, sir?"

They both stared at Isabella for a moment, then Matthews shook his head and shrugged, and William went below.

William had meant it when he'd said that it would be nice to have Horatio back aboard. Even in the last week, he'd come to miss his voice, the way he slid a dry bit of humour in when William was least expecting it, the general warmth of his presence. The Hotspur had never felt quite right when Horatio wasn't on board; sitting in the captain's cabin with the captain in it felt like being wrapped in a boat cloak that had been warmed over the stove. William drank a little too much wine, and smiled a little too much, and didn't regret a thing.

"If you'd like, William," Horatio was saying, and William shook himself back into the present moment.

"Sorry, sir?"

Horatio smiled indulgently, blaming the drink no doubt. "I'm sure I can manage the Hotspur for a few days, if you wanted to go ashore. You could see your family."

William calculated the time spent on travel, and shook his head. "It's generous of you to offer, but I'd scarcely have time to go in before I had to head back out again," he said. "Another time, sir."

He flattered himself that Horatio didn't look disappointed. They said their goodnights a few moments later, and Horatio touched William's elbow in farewell before William went on deck to take a last walk around before turning in.

Orrock had the last dog watch, an even less interesting duty at anchor at night than in the day, but Orrock was a sensible lad not given to skylarking to stave off boredom. Isabella was still sleeping curled up between the canons. Like most cats, sleep seemed to take up a good deal of her schedule, which suited William just fine. He turned in with a heavy, settled feeling that all was well with the world.

* * *

William slept soundly and woke early. He lay in his cabin woolgathering for a time before getting up to see to the sloop. On winter days like this, he preferred the morning watch, standing on the quarterdeck and waiting for the day to come over the world. The fishing fleet would be coming in from their night runs, and slowly all the work of a great port city would begin with a clatter of cartwheels and a ringing of hammers, even as the grey light of dawn spread over the water. On a quiet morning, it always filled William with an immense sense of peace and good order, the kind of feeling that a generally irreligious man had trouble phrasing as anything other than a hymn.

That morning in particular, as he moved across the deck of the Hotspur by memory as much as lamplight, he had all the promise a man could ask for.

William climbed the ladder a few minutes before the bell, was startled to see instead of Orrock's gangly frame, Horatio's broad shoulders and impossibly long legs.

"Good morning, sir," William said, not hiding the question in his voice.

"Good morning, William." Horatio had an equivocal tone in his voice that William knew too well. Orrock was nowhere in sight.

"Couldn't sleep, sir?" William asked, coming to stand next to Horatio at the stern rail.

"Ah, no, I suppose not," Horatio said, and William sensed a note of apology there, too. Was Horatio missing his wife-warmed bed ashore? William hadn't known it to cost him sleep before, but perhaps things had changed. He felt jealousy boiling in his heart and tried to set the feeling away from the heat.

William took a turn around the quarterdeck, peering down into the waist. It took him a moment to notice that something that ought to have been there was not. "Where the devil is Isabella?"

He'd been speaking almost to himself, but Horatio answered. "My cabin, actually, Mr. Bush."

"Of course. She opens hatches," William said.

"She does indeed," Horatio said, and sighed. William heard him shift his weight behind him, and waited silently before Horatio admitted, "She also sleeps in bunks."

William very nearly choked. "Sir!" he said in alarm. How much sleep had Horatio gotten before he'd been displaced by five hundred pounds of affectionate cat? Then his thoughts moved to the next question, to a worse one. "Sir, do you think Admiral Pellew..."

"I dread to speculate, and forbid my officers from doing the same," Horatio answered, but there was laughter in his voice. "I'm going down for an early breakfast," Horatio said. "Would you like me to send up some coffee?"

The last grains of sand fell through the glass, and William turned it before sounding the bell. Feet rushed across the deck, and the day began.

William nodded, and told himself it was ludicrous to feel as jealous of a pet cat as of a wife. All the same, he was not the one who would be sharing breakfast with Horatio in his cabin that morning.

At least there would be coffee, and he'd finally convinced Styles not to boil it.

* * *

The clouds broke around noon, flooding the deck with weak, winter sun. Even in January, it was hot enough to lift steam off the freshly holystoned wood, and lure Isabella up to sprawl on her back with her feet in the air, lying as though dead. She decided to do so on the quarterdeck directly under the bell, which made sounding the watches more hazardous than previously, but at least her trip out from India seemed to have accustomed her to the noises of life at sea.

"Sir, do you think Miss Isabella would like it if I rubbed her belly?" Orrock asked speculatively.

William looked at her lolling head and gently twitching tail. The creamy expanse of fur across her stomach did look as though it ought to be petted. Isabella curled her paws in pleasure, exposing several inches of razor-sharp claws. "It might be the sort of thing a man only does once," William decided.

"Yes, sir," Orrock said, and shifted a half step back towards the rail.

Horatio came on deck with the bell, more walking around the ship to make sure all was well than anything. William had a feeling that not even a day into his time at anchor, he was already bored. He frowned when he saw Isabella, and looked at William, who shrugged.

"Couldn't persuade her to move, sir," William apologised, though he hadn't tried.

"Well, I suppose she could be up in the tops," Horatio said, and Orrock's eyes widened.

"Do you think she could, sir?"

"Let us hope not," William said, picturing the damage to the masts and ratlines she might cause on the way up, to say nothing of the way down. What if she got stuck like a cat in a tree?

Horatio, meanwhile, had dropped to his haunches beside Isabella, and was scratching under her chin before moving down to rub his hands over the fur between her forelegs and finally her belly. William took an uneasy step forward but instead of disembowelling his captain, Isabella made a halting, huffing sound, a bit like a hemp line being pulled through a sticky block.

"I think she's purring!" Horatio said, and grinned up at William.

"So it would seem, sir," William said, charmed despite himself. It didn't sound like purring, but the sentiment was obvious. He dropped to a crouch next to Horatio and extended his knuckles towards Isabella like he would to a strange dog.

Isabella stopped purring and flattened her ears.

William withdrew with alacrity.

"Not sure she cares for you, sir," Orrock observed, too low for Horatio to hear.

William narrowed his eyes at Orrock and grunted, but he couldn't deny the truth in the lad's observation. Nor could he deny that the cat's rejection stung a little. William wasn't a man who strived to be liked, at least not by most, but in that moment he thought of what it had felt like to be excluded from Kennedy and Hornblower's easy friendship in those first few months aboard the Renown. He'd never done anything to Isabella, had even been the one to organise her meals, but it seemed she only had room in her heart for Horatio.

With William out of reach, Isabella had resumed her stuttering growl, basking in the attention Horatio lavished on her. When he tried to pull away and stand up, she wrapped two massive paws around Horatio's forearm and held him in place so that she could rub her cheeks against his hand.

"I think she may be in love with you, sir," William told him, not quite sounding as teasing as he'd intend it.

Horatio cleared his throat awkwardly and gently detached himself from the affectionate tiger's hold. His eyes swept over the deck and up the rigging, looking for something out of order that he could command corrected, but the sloop was entirely as it ought to be, the deck smooth, the lines coiled, and every scrap of brass gleaming. William had seen to it that morning, same as he always did. Horatio sighed and shook his head slightly. If they'd been at sea, he'd probably have ordered the men to run through a gunnery or sail practice, but there was little to do in the harbour.

Clearing his throat again, Horatio said, "As you were, gentlemen," and left the quarterdeck.

Isabella rolled to her feet. She cleared the ladder in a single graceful leap and fell into step at Horatio's heel.

"Pity the captain's already married," Styles said loudly enough to carry up a deck, and it took all of William's control to suppress a laugh and pretend he hadn't heard. Orrock didn't fare as well.

* * *

That evening, Isabella took up residence in Horatio's bunk even before William turned in for the night. The big cat filled the bunk to the point where the ropes creaked under the unexpected strain, and Horatio and William exchanged a worried glance.

"Well," Horatio said as Isabella rested her head on her paws and settled into watching them through half closed eyes, "I supposed that's less of a shock than waking up to a wet nose pressing into your neck."

"That could be," William said, "but where are you going to sleep?"

Horatio got a look in his eye that seemed to suggest that he planned to just do two consecutive night watches, like he had under Captain Sawyer's punishment.

"Sir," William said, waiting until Horatio stopped staring at the tiger in his bunk before continuing. "I have first watch tonight; you could sleep in my cabin for a spell." William promised himself that he'd either take both night watches, or sleep in the cable-tier like he had as a mid.

Horatio frowned, and William thought he was trying to come up with a reason to turn down an offer of kindness. In the middle of trying to work it out, a jaw-splitting yawn overtook him, and he ended up laughingly giving in. "All right. Thank you, William."

"Of course, sir." William couldn't deny there was a certain pleasure of thinking of Horatio sleeping in his bunk, but that was outweighed by the glow that filled his chest at Horatio's gratitude. William nodded and went up on deck, taking over the watch a few minutes before the bell.

A few minutes after the bell, a crash loud enough to rattle the cannons echoed up through the hull. It was the sound, William immediately suspected, of a bunk, a grown man and a tiger hitting the deck when the bunk's cables parted under the weight of the latter.

Momentarily, the commander of the marines reported that William's speculation had been correct. Neither the captain nor Isabella had taken any injury, but William's bunk was another matter.

"How long is Lady Susan aboard the Tonnant?" Horatio asked half an hour later. Even with his boat cloak on and his hat pulled down as far as it would go, he shivered against the driving rain that had taken up as soon as he'd been forced on deck.

"Another two days at the outside, or so the admiral said, sir," William commented. He almost suggested that Horatio could beg permission to sleep ashore for those final nights, but knew that he'd never admit not being able to keep up with a task, not to Pellew, and certainly not because a lady, of any species or description, appeared to be infatuated with him. "I can understand why Lady Susan disapproves of the admiral's pets. Do you think they're all this troublesome?"

Horatio's teeth had started to chatter, and he huddled further into his coat. "I certainly hope they're not usually worse!"

"At least go below, Captain," William said. It was cold enough up here for a stocky man like himself. The wind would blow right through Horatio. He almost suggested huddling with Isabella for warmth, or made a joke about Mrs. Hornblower's jealousy, but managed to bite his tongue in time. From Horatio's acid expression, he seemed to suspect that William was thinking it anyway. "Have a good night, sir," William said mildly.

"Thank you, Mr. Bush!"

Horatio went below, presumably to sulk in his cabin while Isabella lavished affection upon him, and William remained on deck in the rain. He heard the bells and creaks of the fishing fleet as it put out for the night, trying to fill their nets for the morning markets. William had often wondered about that life, more difficult in its way than the Navy, but still one of marriage to the sea as much as to anything.

He heard the church bells strike in the city, their voices ringing across the water, and wondered if Maria Hornblower woke and stared out across the water, looking for the Hotspur's stern lantern out amid the fleet. Soon, Horatio would have his promotion and his command. He would almost certainly bring Bush with him, and they'd put to sea for months or even years, and William wouldn't have to share either with wives or, hopefully, with overgrown house cats. The only thing then to split Horatio's attention would be his damnable sense of duty, and the soul of whatever ship he happened to command.

For a long time, William had told himself that he could live with that.

Somewhere below deck, William heard hammering. He almost sent a marine down to tell whatever loyal sailor was attempting to reassemble his bunk to leave off until morning, but then let it be. Whoever it was would hardly wake the captain. The sounds ceased soon enough anyway, and William was left with the peace of the night again.

He half expected that Horatio would claim the graveyard watch, but Orrock came on deck as expected, and William went below.

William turned into his cabin expecting to find a re-hung bunk, or at least an attempt at one, but instead found a sailor's hammock in its place. William frowned at it, then shrugged and stripped for sleep. He'd spent enough years in a hammock that he thought he could still manage to sleep in one. The repairs, it seemed, had not gone well, but some thoughtful soul had cleared away the mess and done their best to leave him somewhere to lay his head. There also wasn't a tiger, which wasn't a possibility William had considered worrying about aboard ship before two days ago, but spent rather too much time on now. Presumably, Isabella was off harassing Horatio.

William dropped off with a sailor's ease, and didn't wake until nearly first light.

After walking around the sloop to make sure that all was well, William tapped on the door to Horatio's cabin, expecting to find him sleep deprived and testy.

Instead there was genuine cheer in the man's voice when he called for William to come in. Though he was clutching a cup of coffee as though it were a sheet in a gale, he was also smiling, and his skin had some colour to it, not the pallor William expected.

"Good morning, sir?" William hadn't meant that to be a question, and indeed it needn't have been.

The answer became apparent as soon as he entered. Isabella lay in contentment below Horatio's bunk, ensconced inside the frame of William's ruined bunk, which'd had its sides raised and re-enforced even as it was lined with blankets William recognised as Horatio's. Isabella met William's eyes and flicked her ears back, but made no move in his direction.

"A box," William said flatly.

Horatio laughed, the sound almost giddy with relief. "A box, William. I'm told cats like them."

"It would seem so, sir," William said, and sat down for breakfast. He was glad that it'd been Matthews who'd suggested it, sparing William the indignity of putting up with Styles being right, again.

Isabella chuffed in sleepy contentment, which made Horatio smile, and William almost forgave her.

Still, William's goodwill towards all feline-kind did not extend to feeling sorry to hear that Admiral Pellew had signalled for Isabella's return around the end of the forenoon watch. Horatio accompanied her back to the flagship, and William watched the cutter skud over the choppy water, and the bosun's chair lifting Isabella up past the two decks of guns to the waist. He wondered if the cat would be as happy to see Pellew after she'd had Horatio all to herself for three days.

Then, watching Horatio scramble up the ladder, William laughed at his own lack of understanding as to who, exactly, was going to be unhappy now that Horatio was sleeping ashore again.

At least for William it was only a matter of time.


End file.
